veqq
1yr ago
Thanks, that led me down a 2 hour rabbit hole. https://old.reddit.com/user/zaruka
veqq
1yr ago
I know 3 guys who studied theater and acted professionally before becoming right wing political consultants.
veqq
1yr ago
This is a telegram channel doing the same thing, but less doomsdayish: https://t.me/axisofordinary
veqq
1yr ago
The word "Russophile" means pro-Russian (dependent on definitions of Russia(n)). Calling Galeev a Russophile is incorrect. That is the only scope of my comment.
veqq
1yr ago
We all know the statistics associated with dating apps.
Going outside and talking to people has great statistics.
veqq
1yr ago
Could you explain the distinction between Tutsi and Hutu?
Previously I vaguely remembered colonial authorities basically made them up. So I looked into it a bit. Wiki e.g.:
They defined "Tutsi" as anyone owning more than ten cows (a sign of wealth) or with the physical features of a longer thin nose, high cheekbones, and being over six feet tall, all of which are common descriptions associated with the Tutsi.
which would add any successful people into this, as if making "kulak" an ethnicity.
Both the Tutsi and Hutu had been the traditional governing elite, but both colonial powers allowed only the Tutsi to be educated and to participate in the colonial government.
🤷♀️
Is it the case where a few disparate groups were sublimated into either Tutsi or Hutu? Or that the Tutsi were a coherent group? Are "official" takes as distorted as e.g. HBD? I'm more familiar with Central Asia, where Kazakhs, Uzbeks and such were basically invented in the 1920s, almost whole cloth.
veqq
1yr ago
20% of the total wealth in the Western world
Where does this number come from?
If you ever find it, I'd love to read it. Also: @daseindustriesltd
@Lykurg shared something related:
Like, and I'm definitely not being 100% charitable here, reading between the lines, you almost hear, "Men want to rub their bodies against women sometimes and then ejaculate when their genitals are in the rough vicinity of that woman's genitals or other parts and crevices various and sundry. Women also sometimes want forms of this, too. There are some variations about the identities of the bodies involved, but this covers the general case. We will call this interaction "sex", and claim to be the champion of it. Now, how can we eliminate everything else that has historically made this transaction problematic, from a disease perspective, from a fertility perspective, and especially from a social / emotional / power / interpersonal relationship perspective? Once we stop permitting all that other stuff, once we heavily stigmatize all that other stuff, we will be left with 'safe sex', and we will loudly encourage it. And this is what 'sex' will mean as we march into the future, and this will be progress."
Again, I'm being unfair. But if this is someone's model of human sexuality, it's a model that has almost no room for things like seduction, and is likely wary of most kinds of flirting. It's a model that is very uncomfortable with human brains being the most important sexual organ, and of the deep pleasures of sexual tension and the role of uncertainty and imagination and play and teasing in desire.
veqq
1yr ago
That's almost literally my entire approach. My taste stupifies me in its shallowness. Whilst I can wax lyrical on other aesthetic themes, discerning various movements and approaches, describe my personality and character ideals, how they developed, who I know that embody such aspects etc. when it comes to physical beauty:
booba
is all too accurate. It feels like there should be so much more... Alas.
veqq
1yr ago
Polygyny, as practiced by Mohammad, who is considered as example of how Muslims should live, inevitably creates incels. As was already noted in this thread, nice if you building society to go to war and use incels in a war.
Yes. And? I don't understand how to respond to your comment. It doesn't seem to logically lead from what I wrote nor to itself. They're parroting western manosphere personalities, complaining about liberal women etc. in Pakistan. What do you mean what do I mean?
Should I clarify that "tangential" means loosely related or "cringe western (manosphere) influencers" are guys saying you should migrate to the 3rd world do find submissive women?
veqq
1yr ago
Yes it is. We've all just clicked the link and seen it. Are you lying here?
veqq
1yr ago
His 911 call sounds a lot like someone who has dementia
He seemed normal to me.
The context of the call is baffling. Why would this guy let him call? Clearly Pelosi was trying to get the police to come without saying "HELP" while the responder seemingly had no clue what was going on (for most?) of it.
veqq
1yr ago
In the 911 call, he's asking where the capital police are since they normally protect his wife. I guess they just protect her? Or he gets a minimal detail, someone went to the bathroom or... Who knows
They clearly have cameras since we can see the security footage of him hammering his way in.
It would be nearly impossible for mass incarceration NOT to lower the crime rate.
Very easy to imagine a society where half are incarcerated for things which have since been legalized etc.
There are many hypotheticals like arbitrary imprisonment of random people etc.
In reality, our model arbitrarily imprisons certain demographics in certain areas, randomly enforces some laws in certain areas, randomly ignores certain criminals in certain areas, randomly believes crime shouldn't be punished in certain areas... So it's very difficult to actually map.
We have countless true stories of people in Alabama or whatever being in prison for 20 years for stealing 5 dollars, or for people falsifying evidence for decades etc. We also have countless true stories of rabid monsters committing 500 crimes while people wax poetic to free them immediately.
veqq
1yr ago
Tangential and beyond this, many Muslims (especially in their countries) are really receptive to manosphere and incel type texts. I've recently been befriending Pakistanis, Saudis and such on facebook and they all share the most cringe inducing things by western influencers. It's really disappointing, honestly.
veqq
1yr ago
Consider half the country uses Russian as their main day to day language, but not even a fifth claim it as their native language (which also means something different than in English), and 57% of that less than a fifth of "Russians" have an opinion on a poll? That's less than 10%. Of the "Ukrainians", you'd be hard pressed to find any (besides in the far West) who don't have a Russian grandparent (or 3). Along the same lines, even in Siberia or Vladivostok, half the people you find will have a Ukrainian or Polish grandparent. This does not impact what ethnic identity they write in surveys.
veqq
1yr ago
Relatedly, the internal boarders of the commonwealth between Poland and Lithuania from the Union of Lublin in 1579 are the current border between Belarus and Ukraine.
Ukraine has a deep ethnic split between Ukrainians and Russians
This dichotomy lost its importance by 2016. Having lived in Eastern Ukraine, everyone lost any faith in Russia seeing the Donbas turn into a looted mafia run hellhole, with militias forcing people to sign their assets away etc. Culture, language etc. are meaningless compared to not wanting to be impoverished worse than the 90s. The Ukrainian army is very happy to use Russian, Azov's main language was Russian and had many Russians from Russia in its ranks. Many are now switching languages, building negative associations with Russian, due to the war.
One confounder is Zelensky himself, commonly found on Russian TV, who ran on a campaign to ease tensions and move on from the Donbas conflict. In spite of this, he surprising ended up not vetoing (middling) anti-Russian language laws. I haven't been able to determine why he switched then - but it does echo popular opinion in the East too. Here Zelensky sings on a Russian New Year's special: https://youtube.com/watch?v=lkdDQX06ISI The channel currently does nothing but war propaganda, featuring some audience members.
I've written about identity in Ukraine in other posts: https://www.themotte.org/post/269/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/50553?context=8#context
veqq
1yr ago
This is a really cool feature/stab at crowdsourced modding! Well done!
I find it really fun to use, too.
veqq
1yr ago
designed to use asbestos for fire protection. Asbestos was banned right after construction started
Asbestos was used! Near 2000, they were supposed to start removing it. Some of the conspiracy theories focus on the owner destroying it for insurance money to avoid paying for the modifications, with the port authority buying it and paying or... Something. I don't remember. But removing asbestos plays a roll!
veqq
1yr ago
Actuary tables put the (economic) value of a life at somewhere under $10 million: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life#United_States
veqq
1yr ago
the history of the reparations movement
Gates, the guy speaking:
The enemy of individuality is groupthink, Gates says, and here he holds everyone accountable. Recently, he has enraged many of his colleagues in the African-American studies field—especially those campaigning for government reparations for slavery—by insistently reminding them, as he did in a New York Times op-ed last year, that the folks who captured and sold blacks into slavery in the first place were also Africans, working for profit. "People wanted to kill me, man," Gates says of the reaction to that op-ed. "Black people were so angry at me. But we need to get some distance from the binary opposition we were raised in: evil white people and good black people. The world just isn't like that."
It's rather even handed. He doesn't support the reparation movement!
veqq
1yr ago
He has had a tv show for ~ 10 years, which he's surely more famous for than being arrested when his front door jammed.
Also many reasonable positions which support trusting him:
The enemy of individuality is groupthink, Gates says, and here he holds everyone accountable. Recently, he has enraged many of his colleagues in the African-American studies field—especially those campaigning for government reparations for slavery—by insistently reminding them, as he did in a New York Times op-ed last year, that the folks who captured and sold blacks into slavery in the first place were also Africans, working for profit. "People wanted to kill me, man," Gates says of the reaction to that op-ed. "Black people were so angry at me. But we need to get some distance from the binary opposition we were raised in: evil white people and good black people. The world just isn't like that."
More North Korea stuff. Zaruka has many pics and impressions from visits a decade ago. I finished the rabbit hole after Zaruka and figured someone might be interested, but it's a bit hard to choose any comment and even "top" isn't helpful. But I'll try this: https://old.reddit.com/r/northkorea/comments/n8ysx/i_travel_to_north_korea_annually_ama/
More options
Context Copy link